Butterflies and dolphins blessed my sight today. In a town north of Santa Barbara, Goleta. Who could ask for anything more than a pod of dolphins swimming off the pier, and inland, hundreds, hundreds of large monarch butterflies floating overhead in the tops of the sun seeking eucalyptus trees silhouetted in the brilliant sky.
It was quite wonderful.
January 27, 2010
January 26, 2010
Dusting To Honor Company
I am dusting when I should be in bed, asleep. I am looking foward to tomorrow and cannot sleep. So I dust in honor of a friend's visit. She will be honored by my dusting deeply, this is my bow to her. Here, I will do this task in your honor. Please accept this gift from me.
And tonight as I dusted, I received a gift from the Universe, a gift of knowing. I've never liked dusting, generally. In fact I generally avoid housework as best I may. Margaret loved to dust, so I was thrilled that she'd regularly make the house shine. She extended the glow by lighting incense and candles. Then the house became magic. She could create magic. And she always created beauty in her world. Her eye was impeccable.
Dusting, deep dusting requires a good rag, and something that will let the wood sparkle. It takes time, especially if you're picking up each object, dusting it and settling it back where it belongs. Time to take a look at what you've just arranged, just created. Letting your eyes take in the beauty of your objects displayed.
It is exactly in the lifting, feeling, looking at each piece that I now see, I now realize, brings a flood of memories. Of where this piece was displayed in our home, before. I shudder at this Knowing, and am totally content with their new placement.
And tonight as I dusted, I received a gift from the Universe, a gift of knowing. I've never liked dusting, generally. In fact I generally avoid housework as best I may. Margaret loved to dust, so I was thrilled that she'd regularly make the house shine. She extended the glow by lighting incense and candles. Then the house became magic. She could create magic. And she always created beauty in her world. Her eye was impeccable.
Dusting, deep dusting requires a good rag, and something that will let the wood sparkle. It takes time, especially if you're picking up each object, dusting it and settling it back where it belongs. Time to take a look at what you've just arranged, just created. Letting your eyes take in the beauty of your objects displayed.
It is exactly in the lifting, feeling, looking at each piece that I now see, I now realize, brings a flood of memories. Of where this piece was displayed in our home, before. I shudder at this Knowing, and am totally content with their new placement.
January 24, 2010
Caterpillar
You’re usually found on trees, branches, twigs, leaves, walking, munching happily; not on the open ground, a roadway where unaware feet may trample you and certainly swift quadrillion times your weight cars will crush you to nothing. You’re lumbering along on the roadway we share this morning. Knowing your fragility, I lift you up (afraid of me, you curl into a complete circle of soft bristles), I’m amazed at your non weight in my hand, and place you on the nearest branch where my mind tells me you belong. Did I just disrupt the order of life?
January 18, 2010
Does Everything Sundrenched Smell Delicious?
My head in the uppermost branches of my tangerine tree, I'm standing precariously on my six foot ladder, merrily picking fruit. I feel safe, immune from falls, scraps, even the dread finger lopped off by my trusty #2 Felco pruners. Doesn't faze me at all. No. I'm just happy to be up here, deep in the branches of this lovely, non-demanding, always generous tree.
But I nearly slip, catching an armful of supple branches which square me back to balance on the topmost step, the one I'm warned against using. My head and face are thrust deep into the leaves of these saviour branches, and I have the good fortune to breathe deeply.
I am greeted by my sweet doggie dog's scent after soaking in the sun; by the smell of my arm, catching the sun's glory beating into my flesh as I drive down the road; by the smell of new washed laundry brittlely dry on the line.
To my great surprise and delight, the tangerine leaves smell just like my sweet doggie dog, my own sundrenched skin, my laundry ablaze with sunshine particles dusting our beings.
But I nearly slip, catching an armful of supple branches which square me back to balance on the topmost step, the one I'm warned against using. My head and face are thrust deep into the leaves of these saviour branches, and I have the good fortune to breathe deeply.
I am greeted by my sweet doggie dog's scent after soaking in the sun; by the smell of my arm, catching the sun's glory beating into my flesh as I drive down the road; by the smell of new washed laundry brittlely dry on the line.
To my great surprise and delight, the tangerine leaves smell just like my sweet doggie dog, my own sundrenched skin, my laundry ablaze with sunshine particles dusting our beings.
January 11, 2010
Being Taken
I’m beginning to comprehend
that I must do a courtship dance
and agree to being taken
rather than me taking.
This time I get taken
by the one I wish to take.
that I must do a courtship dance
and agree to being taken
rather than me taking.
This time I get taken
by the one I wish to take.
January 03, 2010
Four Years
Four Years
For years I’ve wished for the ability to breathe, freely, joyfully, loving every aspect of my life. I wanted either this level of normalcy and bliss, or death. I had had this level of bliss in my life, I knew what it daily felt like, and I wanted it again. Or death. Either/or.
I knew I was mired in the place of such extreme pain that nothing matters. Having this space of pain, daily, hurts. It is painful, physically as well as mentally, soulfully painful. Days of sitting and staring and not seeing, just crying and wishing I would die. I felt my soul being shredded. I felt daily dragged through hell, inch by inch.
When I learned of Lydia’s prognosis in mid-September, that she had only weeks to live, a small part of me, a tiny part, but one which sought and received acknowledgement, wanted to die in her place. I envied her too soon death. I wanted it to be me. I had lost my life with the one I adored, I'd had my cake and my fill, I needed nothing more.
But this envy never became more than acknowledgement, the envy of her death truly never caused me to stop listening to Tina and Beyonce at the top of their game full blast in the car. Feeling good. I was getting out, near daily. I was seeing, doing, being with others. Doing groups, participation, participation in life, in my world. Being willing to create my life, alone, with others in active voice, with desire to be heard.
But...the creation of my life, solely, does cause me depression. I recently wrote my dear friend Janice the fact of my recognition of the times I feel depressed and how it is bound to the reality that I create my life solely. Alone.
I’ve lived more years coupled or grouped than not, and I seem to prefer such living versus living alone. In fact these four years have been the longest I’ve lived alone in my life.
Sometimes it is painful, true. But mostly it has become amazingly delicious and freeing. I pinch myself daily, fully conscious and alive to all that I am grateful for. I understand that I can now create a joy and richness for my heart and soul which rivals anything I had with Margaret. The richness and joy with her, amazing, what a once in a lifetime experience to have this level of love with another. But now I have the capacity to create this level of richness and joy with a group of women, with people. I relish what life is offering.
I wish to acknowledge the passing of four years exactly since her passing. Margaret died only three days after turning fifty nine. No one expected this. No one. It caused pain and it was disruptive.
I want to acknowledge the disruption, the major disruption which death causes the ones left. Total disruption in all aspects of one's life, including a disruption of one’s previous reality. Death is now part and parcel of reality. Death never truly existed before. Death is here, and now demands to be accounted for in the rest of my life. Death is certain disruption. Death now gets factored in. Always.
Four years, and I have accepted, adapted; and I am beginning to thrive on the disruption. I go on, and choose joy and love and communication with others.
For years I’ve wished for the ability to breathe, freely, joyfully, loving every aspect of my life. I wanted either this level of normalcy and bliss, or death. I had had this level of bliss in my life, I knew what it daily felt like, and I wanted it again. Or death. Either/or.
I knew I was mired in the place of such extreme pain that nothing matters. Having this space of pain, daily, hurts. It is painful, physically as well as mentally, soulfully painful. Days of sitting and staring and not seeing, just crying and wishing I would die. I felt my soul being shredded. I felt daily dragged through hell, inch by inch.
When I learned of Lydia’s prognosis in mid-September, that she had only weeks to live, a small part of me, a tiny part, but one which sought and received acknowledgement, wanted to die in her place. I envied her too soon death. I wanted it to be me. I had lost my life with the one I adored, I'd had my cake and my fill, I needed nothing more.
But this envy never became more than acknowledgement, the envy of her death truly never caused me to stop listening to Tina and Beyonce at the top of their game full blast in the car. Feeling good. I was getting out, near daily. I was seeing, doing, being with others. Doing groups, participation, participation in life, in my world. Being willing to create my life, alone, with others in active voice, with desire to be heard.
But...the creation of my life, solely, does cause me depression. I recently wrote my dear friend Janice the fact of my recognition of the times I feel depressed and how it is bound to the reality that I create my life solely. Alone.
I’ve lived more years coupled or grouped than not, and I seem to prefer such living versus living alone. In fact these four years have been the longest I’ve lived alone in my life.
Sometimes it is painful, true. But mostly it has become amazingly delicious and freeing. I pinch myself daily, fully conscious and alive to all that I am grateful for. I understand that I can now create a joy and richness for my heart and soul which rivals anything I had with Margaret. The richness and joy with her, amazing, what a once in a lifetime experience to have this level of love with another. But now I have the capacity to create this level of richness and joy with a group of women, with people. I relish what life is offering.
I wish to acknowledge the passing of four years exactly since her passing. Margaret died only three days after turning fifty nine. No one expected this. No one. It caused pain and it was disruptive.
I want to acknowledge the disruption, the major disruption which death causes the ones left. Total disruption in all aspects of one's life, including a disruption of one’s previous reality. Death is now part and parcel of reality. Death never truly existed before. Death is here, and now demands to be accounted for in the rest of my life. Death is certain disruption. Death now gets factored in. Always.
Four years, and I have accepted, adapted; and I am beginning to thrive on the disruption. I go on, and choose joy and love and communication with others.
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